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Old 10-08-2006, 06:52 AM   #104
Firefoot
Illusionary Holbytla
 
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Join Date: Dec 2003
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Firefoot has been trapped in the Barrow!
Scyld had expected anger, but Linduial was showing fear and desperation. Well, perhaps that made sense; he would be condemning her to death; he had just grown more accustomed to her spirit in the past couple days. He did not yet know whether this would make his plan easier or harder. “I can’t do that,” he said bluntly. “For one thing, I think Sorn is still lurking around outside and may even be speaking with the rescue party as we speak. I don’t know. And whether you made it to them or he caught up with you first, Sorn would hunt me down and kill me. He’s mad, but he’s not stupid; he won’t wait around here once you’re dead.” Of course, Sorn would probably hunt him down anyway, but maybe, if he was lucky, by the time Sorn realized Scyld and Linduial were gone, the rescuers would have gotten organized and figured a better way to keep watch over the hall; they might even kill Sorn for him. Scyld felt a stab of disappointment at that thought; he had always entertained fantasies of killing Sorn himself, but dead was dead and it might even be better that way, from a legal standpoint. As if Scyld wasn’t already in enough potential trouble with the law.

At Scyld’s unfeeling words, Linduial’s composure seemed to be crumbling fast. “But – but you have to do something –”

Scyld held up a hand to silence her. “Oh, yes, I do,” answered Scyld mockingly. It was a tone he adopted almost unconsciously, even though he really meant it. “I could not leave you here alone to be killed, of course.” Swiftly, his tone changed; he was deadly serious. “You’re coming with me.”

Confusion reigned in Linduial’s features. Clearly she had not expected this and did not now know how to respond, so Scyld continued. “Perhaps you can see my predicament? I cannot leave you here – apparently not even I am so morally corrupt as that – and I cannot let you go.” Scyld wondered if she picked up on his unspoken reasoning: he did not trust her. He wanted to; for the first time since he had come here as a boy, effectively having been sold into slavery, he wanted to trust someone, but he could not. “You have two choices: to come willingly or by force.”
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